The Royals are on the verge of elimination in their AL Division Series after several walks against the Yankees

Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Royals are on the verge of postseason elimination.

The Yankees will try to push them over the edge on Thursday night.

Yes, the hard-hitting, home run-happy Yankees are just one game away from reaching the American League Championship Series for the second time in three years, thanks in large part to the free passes they received from pitching in Kansas City.

Nine in a win in Game 3 on Wednesday night. An astonishing 22 walks through the first three games of the series.

“This is us. This is our DNA. That’s what we’re trying to do,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We've been talking about it since day one of spring training, and these guys go out there and live it. It looks like we haven't really made a big breakthrough yet, but we're creating opportunities against a really good pitching staff.”

Ninety feet at once.

Of course, it was Giancarlo Stanton's mammoth home run in the eighth inning on Wednesday night that ended a bullpen struggle and lifted New York to a 3-2 victory at Kauffman Stadium. But one of the other Yankees runs came after a walk by Juan Soto, who came all the way around early in the game on a double by Stanton and scored from the start.

“I tried to make quality pitches and some just went over the edge,” said Royals starter Seth Lugo, who walked four batters in five innings. “Some I thought were there, some weren't, but I didn't give up and tried to make sure I kept the ball away from the run.”

However, erratic pitching from the Royals' normally spot-on staff was a problem throughout the series

In Saturday night's opener in New York, Kansas City led three times in a wildly swinging game, only to see both times evaporate as they drew eight walks – a season-high nine – in a 6-5 loss was exceeded on Wednesday evening.

Angel Zerpa and John Schreiber issued bases-loaded walks to Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe in the fifth inning that night, giving the Yankees a 5-4 lead. It was the first time the Yankees had two bases-loaded walks in a playoff game since Bullet Joe Bush and Joe Dugan hit the New York Giants' Rosy Ryan in Game 6 of the 1923 World Series.

Gleyber Torres issued five walks in the first three games of the series. Volpe has four.

“You have to give them credit,” said Royals manager Matt Quatraro, whose team walked 472 batters in the regular season, clearly among the top third of pitching staffs in the majors. “They don’t hunt, they don’t expand, but we definitely need to do a better job of limiting them.”

It's not just what the Royals do – the Yankees deserve all those walks.

During the regular season against Kansas City, they scored seven wins in a 10-4 win at Yankee Stadium in early September. While the aptly named Bronx Bombers led the majors with 237 home runs, they also led in walks with 672 – a whopping 70 more than the Dodgers, who were No. 2 in the majors.

That helped New York have the third-best on-base percentage and third-most runs scored.

Even with MVP front-runner Aaron Judge mired in another 11-1 postseason loss and the Yankees struggling to hit up and down the lineup — a total of four hits on Wednesday night — they're still within sight of another ALCS -appearance.

“I was pleased with the quality of the at-bats in every way,” Boone said. “You’re not always going to get a hit, you’re not always going to get a result, but I feel like the quality of the shot was there.”

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